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Horrane
The horrane is a predatory primate that was featured in Dougal Dixon's 1982 book After Man: A Zoology Of The Future. It evolved from the prehistoric Velvet Monkey. It is about the size of a lion, and has a mane like a lion. It also has stripes on an orange background, similar to a tiger. The horrane hunts in packs. Its favourite prey items are gigantelopes. Horranes live on the savannas of Africa. After the big cats became extinct, primates evolved to fill in the ecological niche in the environment they had one occupied. Along with the Raboon, the horrane is one of the two major predators on the African Plains 50 million years after the age of humans. Description Anatomy The horrane may have the mane and social behavior of a lion, and the stripes and colour of a tiger, but its body is built more like a cheetah. Horranes have very long legs. They are digitigrade, meaning that they walk on their toes. Their ancestors, the monkeys, were plantigrade, meaning that it walked flat-footed. Over the many millions of years, the horrane has evolved digitigradeism. The jaws and teeth of the horrane are also very similar to the extinct big cats. This is an excellent, and classic example of convergent evolution a pattern described Alfred Von Meyer that refers to animals that are not very closely-related at all evolving similar traits and characteristics, in order to adapt to similar environments. It has four large canines teeth, two on the upper jaw, and two on the lower jaw. It has a long tail to help it balance, as it is running down its prey. Behaviour The horrane's behaviour is very difficult to figure out, since no human scientist has ever had the opportunity to see one of them, in person. However, as humans beings, we can make a few limited guesses about what its behaviour may be like. First of all, we can only speculate about its pack-hunting behaviour. We know that horranes hunt gigantelopes in packs. The techniques and hunting tactics they use are very complicated, and require a very large brain and very advanced intelligence, which, as a primate, the horrane has. A description of a typical hunt in a day in the life of a pack of horranes goes somewhat like this: one animal hides in the grass, with a few parts of it visible for the prey to glimpse. Once the prey has all of its attention focused on that first hunter, two others emerge from the grass and attack, not from the front, but from the side. They leap onto the gigantelope and starts biting with their jaws and scratching with their claws at it, until it finally dies. This kind of hunting behaviour is very complicated. Only two other predators in the history of the Earth, humans and Troodons (a type of theropod dinosaur) were intelligent enought to be capable of this type of hunting behaviour. Then the pack starts to feasting on the carcass. There is a clear pecking order, with the cubs eating first, then the alpha male and the alpha female, followed by the other males, and finally, the other females eat last. Unlike lions, which forced cubs to eat last, horranes let their cubs eat first. Since horranes are intelligent, they know that the cubs are the most important members of the pack, because they will later grow up and reproduce and have kids of their own, therefore ensuring the success of their species. Category:After Man species Category:Primates Category:Future Animals Category:Future Evolution Category:Carnivores Category:future animals Category:mammals of 100 million years